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President Obama and Planned Parenthood Will Promote Abortion at Summit of the Americas

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 15
, 2009

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood are expected to join forces to promote abortion at the fifth Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad tomorrow. The event is a chance for the leaders of the 35 members of the Organization of American States to gather, but it could be marked by a debate over abortion.

President Obama will speak during Friday's opening ceremonies and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also be in attendance. While they will garner top headlines, a fight between pro-life advocates and the Planned Parenthood abortion business will take place below the surface.

Marie Smith, the director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues, tells LifeNews.com that pro-life advocates face well-orchestrated efforts by International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) and other pro-abortion organizations to insert pro-abortion language into the Summit's Declaration of Commitment.

IPPF hopes to use the document as a stepping stone to advance abortion in the Caribbean and Latin American nations, most of which are strongly pro-life and prohibit abortions in all or most circumstances.

One of the specific terms IPPF seeks to inject into the document is "sexual and reproductive health services" -- a term which can later be interpreted to include abortions.

Smith told LifeNews.com that some representatives of the pro-life nations are expected to stand up to the attempt to covertly advance the abortion agenda using the innocuous language.

"While the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton State Department support IPPF in all its abortion endeavors, and will fund it with hard earned taxpayer dollars, the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean are a long way from rejecting their cherished defense of the most basic human right, the right to life of the unborn child," she said.

"No doubt the smiling faces of President Obama and Hillary Clinton will be in prominent display at the Summit but their support for IPPF and its plans for the region will result in the death of countless unborn children and untold grief, suffering and loss to women," Smith added.

Smith says the IPPF's pro-abortion agenda for the Summit is spelled out in a policy paper titled, "Reproductive Health as an Essential Component of Human Prosperity."

In it, IPPF officials say the Obama administration "will likely support the regional trend toward a rights-based approach to reproductive health and rights" -- something the abortion business says "should be at the heart of the Declaration that comes out of the Port of Spain meeting."

Smith says the actions in the Latin American and Caribbean nations shows their resolve to promote the right to life of unborn children over so-called abortion rights makes it so she is confident Obama and Planned Parenthood will be met with opposition.

An increasing number of the 31 states in Mexico are introducing constitutional protections for the unborn child following the legalization of abortion in the federal district of Mexico City, she notes. And socialist President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua supported legislation to expand pro-life protection for unborn children and criticized international organizations which pressured Nicaragua to legalize abortion.

"These and other significant pro-life victories force IPPF and other abortion activists to disguise their efforts to advance an international right to abortion through the use of undefined terms including- reproductive health care, reproductive health, reproductive rights, sexual and reproductive health services, and reproductive health services," she explained.

Smith says abortion advocates understand that pro-life nations, aided by pro-life groups like hers, have caught on to the efforts to use bogus undefined terms to promote abortion. She believes IPPF may use the Summit of the Americas as a testing ground for a revised below-the-radar effort to promote abortion.

"During the Summit, pro-life countries will also need to pay close attention to new strategies to advance abortion including the use of 'integration of reproductive health' with primary health care or with HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention," she says.

Smith continued, "Pro-abortion organizations have been devising tactics and strategies on advancing abortion in a concerted, united way. Their efforts now have the personal support and financial backing from the highest levels in the United States government."

"The struggle for a culture of life has become more difficult and urgent than ever before. International pro-life efforts need to increase in order to protect the most endangered group on the planet today-unborn children," she concluded.


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